Today is a writing day and I'm kind of dreading it. I have finally reached the point at which I need to write the climax, but there are so many ways to blow it. I'm not very good at writing suspenseful scenes. I did all right with the first version of the story, which had a roof collapsing, but I employed a lot of onomatopoeia, well, because it was a roof collapsing and sounds were crucial. The new version has a different pivotal scene altogether, which I can vaguely picture in my mind, but writing it is a whole other matter. I don't want to ruin this story; I've spent so much time and effort on it.
I actually did some research on how to write a suspenseful scene, but most of the articles I found want to encompass the entire book in order to "build suspense". I'm not writing a thriller! It's one scene!
Some articles reference Hitchcock's "bomb under the table" example, which I do like, but which doesn't really apply to my situation. (It goes something like this: If two people are sitting at a table having a conversation, viewers will be bored, wondering what the point of the scene is. But if viewers are shown that there is a bomb under the table, they will be tense, waiting for the bomb to go off.) The main reason this won't work for me is because I am writing in first person, not third person omniscient, so if there is a bomb under the table, "I" wouldn't know that.
I do like another person's suggestion to employ all the senses (although smell is one I rarely remember to include in my stories), and I like my own suggestion of having a lot of things happening at the same time ~ to create a chaotic, disoriented feel. That could include something as innocuous as a car backfiring as it passes her on the street, when she's already tense. All these things are great in the abstract, but translating them to the written word is daunting.
I suspect this won't get done in one session, and even if it does, it'll be subject to a lot of revision. I'm just not good at it. In Bad Blood I penned a pretty good scene featuring my MC trapped in a house that she slowly realizes is on fire. I'm proud of that (her mom is dead, by way of explanation, and the MC is pregnant.):
The house had been ungodly hot when we crossed the threshold after so much time away. Jake, despite the season, had fired up the air conditioner to give me and our little peanut a modicum of relief. Now I was afraid we’d broken it. Sweat trickled from my temples and I grabbed a paper towel and blotted my face. Then I checked the readout on the oven, afraid that in my exhaustion I’d accidentally set the temperature too high. The oven was fine. Silly, your blood vessels are dilating. Didn’t Doctor Mattern caution about this? Just sit down for a minute. Before you pass out.
I grabbed a dish towel off the rack as a talisman and sunk into a chair. Then I wobbled up and sunk the towel under cold running water, wrung it out and folded it across my forehead. I felt a little better, but every pore of my body still wept. Would Curt drive me to the hospital? If it was an emergency? Was that in his job description? I felt woozy and stretched out on the living room carpet to go to sleep. I tried to breathe deep, but my lungs felt cloudy inside my chest. And I really needed to sleep. Mom patted my face—her hands felt so cold—I said, Mom, where are your shoes? She just smiled a beatific smile and didn’t speak.
Suddenly she pinched my shoulder hard, razor hard, like a pincer claw, and I howled in pain.
Why are you being so mean, Mom?
I tried to scramble to my feet to escape the torment, but she kept pinching me and her fingers dug deeper and deeper into my flesh.
A puffy white cloud surrounded me. Mom must have floated in on it. I felt around for her, but even though her fingers clamped down on my shoulder harder and sharper, I still couldn’t reach around behind my back and pry them loose.
The cloud began to wisp away, leaving only delicate cirrus streaks circling my head. I finally wobbled up to my knees.
I don’t think these clouds are good for my baby, Mom.
Still, her unrelenting torture drove me to crawl away, but I couldn’t catch my breath and every time I tried to push one knee in front of the other, I had to stop. My gaping mouth, my desperate struggle to gulp fresh air, was only making things worse. Mom suddenly let go of my shoulder and thrust the damp dish towel across my face. Maybe it was the shock or the chill, but my wheezing decreased a bit.
Through the nebula I caught sight of something long and black. It looked familiar, like a recovered memory. I pushed one knee forward, then the other, then a bit faster until I reached it. It looked like a door strip, one I recalled seeing a thousand times before in some distant basement factory. I laid my palm on it and it felt rubbery and warm. I tried to stand—there had to be a door knob close by—but the mountain summit was unreachable. Every time I got close I collapsed back on my knees. I had one last filament of strength left and I heaved myself upward.
I reached it!
It won’t open!
It’s locked, Mom said. Twist the deadbolts.
I reached ever higher and clicked the thumb-latch to the right, then felt above it, found the second latch and twisted it. I pulled on the door knob again and heavenly oxygen whooshed over me.
Then I collapsed.
So, apparently I was able to employ all the senses (except taste, I guess). Too bad no one has read Bad Blood. In retrospect, I guess I wrote a suspense scene for Shadow Song, too, so I'll just need to remember how I managed to do both of those.
Tomorrow I will duly report on my progress or lack thereof. Maybe I'll surprise myself.
Stay tuned for our next episode!
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